RESEARCH ARTICLE Association of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in VDR and DBP Genes with HBV-Related Hepatocellular Carcinoma Risk in a Chinese Population

. These authors contributed equally to this work. " These authors should be considered as co-first authors of this work. Background: Polymorphisms of genes encoding components of the vitamin D pathway including vitamin D receptor (VDR) and vitamin D binding protein (DBP) have been widely investigated because of the complex role played by vitamin D in cancer tumorogenesis. In this study, we investigated the association between VDR and DBP gene polymorphisms and HBV-related HCC risk in a Chinese population. Methods: Study subjects were divided into three groups: 184 HBV patients with HCC, 296 HBV patients without HCC, and 180 healthy controls. The VDR rs2228570, and rs3782905 and the DBP rs7041 polymorphisms were genotyped using PCR-RFLP and the VDR rs11568820 polymorphism was genotyped by PCR-SSP, respectively. DNA sequencing was performed to validate the genotype results. Results:We found that there were significant differences in the genotype and allel